By Edwin Cooney
Humankind has been marking and therefore measuring the significance of time going back to the era when the clock replaced the sundial. Yet, especially the older we get, you and I insist each January 1st that there's nothing really significant or "new" about the incoming year. Many of us no longer have the energy or even the inclination to stay up until midnight. Hence, for openers, I bet there are more “bah, humbugs" aimed at “Happy New Year” than there are at "Merry Christmas!" (Note: This is probably due to people’s resistance to keeping New Year’s resolutions!) Yet, January 1st has only been New Year's Day since 1752 (that's a mere 271 years ago) when the British officially adopted the Gregorian calendar. (As I pointed out recently, George Washington never celebrated his 19th birthday because there was never a “February 11th” of 1731. Nor was there a January 1st through March 25th of 1731. Father George, who died on Saturday, December 14th, 1799, was officially 67 years and 295 days old. You can say that George's time was longer than his years since in official years he lost one year and eleven days. Washington was recorded as being born on February 11, 1732.)
Ah! But time passes on, however it is measured. Hence, it allows the new to prevail over that which was important, practical, thinkable, or even doable in the past. Whether you or I had the energy, gall, or the presumption to celebrate the onset of 2023, the new year brings to realistically cynical you and me its greatest and most wondrous gift!
That gift is its newness.
New is fresh, untrammeled, unexplored, and only partially predictable. Don't let anyone tell you that no one (who possesses "common or practical sense”) does not look forward to the new. After all, newness represents almost boundless opportunities.
When I was growing up and the Yankees were beating the Brooklyn Dodgers on almost an annual occasion, I'd hear Dodger fans crowing: "wait till next year!”
Who would have predicted just 23 years ago that we would elect a Black president or the the birth of the iPhone and the iPod. Neither his detractors nor supporters could have predicted the Trump presidency. Would any Republican have predicted that one day Republican leaders would have nice things to say about Vladimir Putin formerly an officer in the Soviet KBG? They used to ridicule those of us who admired Mikhail Gorbachev. Cubs fans may have prayed for their 2016 championship, but they wouldn't have dared to predict it!
History enables us to evaluate the past, but the past was once the future! When I was about 8 or 9, I asked my foster father if, while growing up, he knew he was living in the “olden” days. He responded that his days were modern to him just as today’s were modern for me. I'm quite sure that I didn't entirely grasp the significance of the olden versus the modern, but what else could a 9-year-old boy ask?
The fact of the matter is that without the new there is no significance to the old. The conundrum is that there's nothing tangible about the new because it isn't clearly fathomable!
Therefore, if you're one of those who had neither the interest, the energy or even the inclination to celebrate the arrival of 2023, that's okay, but don't try telling yourself that there will be nothing "new" about 2023, because anyone who buys a lie deserves the deception that accompanies it!
President Lincoln used to urge Americans to think anew and act anew according to changing circumstances.
I'm convinced that what's possible, good or bad, is generally more desirable than most of what never will be!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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